A few weeks ago Ella asked me if she could play at the park after dinner. It was already 6:30 after a long day at school, and she and her 6-year-old sister, Sophia, had yet to have a bath. “Sorry,” I answered. “There’s too much to do before bed.”
Ella stomped up the stairs and yelled, “Sometimes I wish I could just quit the family and do whatever I want!”
Ella’s only 9, so I wasn’t concerned that she would follow through on her threat. I did, however, see her point. Like most parents, Tanya and I tell our kids what to do all the time, mostly because they don’t listen until something is repeated 10 times. I wondered: In the interest of showing my kids how much they really need my bossing around, should I consider actually letting them do whatever they want?
This wasn’t the first time I heard Ella voice her displeasure with the family hierarchy. I appreciate that from her perspective, it must be hard to only occasionally taste the freedom that parents seem to exercise all the time. Even from a young age, we all know how good it feels to make decisions, from what to eat for breakfast to whom to invite to our birthday party. We crave autonomy.
The catch is that young children don’t have enough experience to understand what they need and how to make sound long-term decisions. I consider Ella to be emotionally mature for a 9-year-old. But left to her own devices, I wouldn’t be surprised if she bathed once a week, ordered pizza for dinner every night, and watched television until her eyes glazed over. Of course, I could be wrong.
It would be quite the social experiment (and probably criminal) to give Ella and Sophia, say, three days to police themselves. I wouldn’t leave the house, just leave them alone. My instructions might go something like this:
“Be careful using the stove.”
“Wear clean underwear.”
“If you shower, don’t flood the basement.”
To be clear, I would never go through with it. But if I did, Sophia probably would raid the candy drawer, then beg us to come back within a day. Ella, I fear, might actually consider it a vacation. She’d scramble up some eggs in the morning, wear the same clothes every day, and watch a lot of movies. In other words, she’d be fine, but only until she wasn’t.
That time would come eventually, because it has to. Children can’t grasp how dependent they are on being told what to do. Even if they don’t freely admit it, they crave guidance and examples of how to navigate the world. If kids were meant to do whatever they wanted all the time, parents would have been phased out a long time ago.
As my own mother told me when I was finally old enough to understand: When your kids tell you to back off, listen closely. They’re telling you the exact opposite.
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